Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Knightshade]

Schwab just notified me that I could vote my shares.

Done.

Funny story.. couple days ago I got an email to vote my shares from robinhood.

This struck me as odd since AFAIK I don't hold any shares via robinhood.

In fact last I knew I held nothing in robinhood.

So I logged in to look- and realized what happened. Some time ago I'd move some spare cash over there to grab a promo they were doing- then moved it back out since there wasn't a long holding period required.

The "bonus" I got as "free stock" turns out to have been like 0.22 shares of Tesla (since they do partial shares) and so I got to vote 0.22 "extra" shares beyond my normal ones held elsewhere.

 

[unk45]

Thanks, guess that's everywhere, right?
I drove through Belgium a long time ago (with the Plaintif) and suddenly I was in French territory. Native toungue beyond Frere Jacques, it was a fun surprise!

Not sure if you’re serious. Just in case Flanders is the Flemish (essentially a Dutch dialect) side. That is the wealthy side, the one smith almost all the EVs.
Wallonia, essential the French part does not buy many EVs don’t have so many fast chargers.
The German speaking part is East Belgium, technically part of Wallonia but largely independent.
The two entities have separate governments. The national government sometimes has a legal government, sometimes not, but National level functions continue to function anyway.

Belgium is a weird and wonderful country, in my opinion, although I’ve never lived there.

 

[Tronguy]

I saw that regarding the EU, but you beat me to it.

There was some commentary over at the Great Britain thread about SuC stopping.. so, whatever happened in NA, looks like it may have spread to the EU, too. But May Day is a bigger holiday on the east side of the pond than here, so we'll see next week.

Nothing in Down Under, either.

Good news, of sorts.

A single new supercharger in Salem, NH with 12 stalls came online today!

Comments on the TMC thread following this location says that the Tesla commissioning team was working on getting it up and running today.

After a hiatus of 4 days, we got life.

Hopefully the first of many SC installs going forward.

 

[MC3OZ]

What do other people think about this?

After giving it some thought, the closest historical parallel is the building of railways.

Prior to railways walking was probably the main means of travel for the majority of the population, only a minority owned a horse or could afford to travel via horse and cart.

Railways did 2 things:-

1. Reduced travel times
2. Made travel affordable for a substantial chunk of the population.

The help shape cities and commuting habits, and tater on the car added suburbs into the mix,

So each new travel option changes a lot of things.

Looking at the TAM for Robotaxis, the first question is:-

• Do we really need someone to drive people around?

I think the short answer is no, and that has implications for:-

• Ride share
• Taxis
• Bus Drivers
• The size of buses

If FSD works, smaller mini-buses are a more efficient option than larger buses.

And the next question is:-

• If the cost of a Robotaxi was roughly equal to the cost of public transport, which option would you choose?

And the final question is:-

• if you currently drive you car to work each day, what do you pay for parking?

So my base case is:-

• 100% of rideshare
• 100% of Taxis
• 100% of buses
• 30% of public transport (subway, train)
• 30% of commuter miles

The bull case assumes that Boring co tunnels work:-

• 100% of rideshare
• 100% of Taxis
• 100% of buses
• 40% of public transport (subway, train)
• 50% of commuter miles
• 100% of people and places that currently have no affordable transport option.

I don't think this applies only to cities I live in a costal holiday area and lots of tourists fly into the area or the airport at the nearest big city. Many locals drive to train stations and commute to the city for work. A Robotaxi here would get a surprising amount of business.

I also see many young women here driving large pickups, I think the vast majority of these cases are single car families, and while the wife is driving the car the husband isn't working. Before you feel too sorry for the husband, he is probably surfing.

My daughter doesn't have a drivers licence, and I'm not encouraging her to get one, it will be a waste of time and money. I've told her she probably doesn't need one, even that didn't motivate her to get one.

Why do I think FSD/Robotaxi will probably work?

Because Elon thinks it will, and he is backing his conviction with a total overhaul of the company structure, and large investments in AI compute.

There are only 3 alternatives:-

1. Elon is right.
2. Elon is eventually right, but it takes longer than expected.
3. Elon is wrong, and it never works.

The bet Elon is taking is that it works in the timeframe he expects, or it takes a bit longer, That is not a "bet the company" bet or an all in option. There are short term implications on other programs in the current macro and interest rate environment.

Limiting Factor coined the term:- STED (Smarter Than Elon Disease) it is spreading faster than peak Covid.

 

[SPadival]

Why do you need to know the answers to those specific questions? You - specifically.

And you don’t need to answer on the forum, it’s really just a question to ask yourself and then when you have the answer you’ll have a path forward.

Won’t someone think of the little contractor whose email bounced?

Their interest is protected by a contract and they will be suitably compensated for any breach of contract by Tesla.

We as customers are not affected. This is a storm in a teacup. If the email hadn’t leaked, we’d have been none the wiser .. but sadly, there wouldn’t have been any opportunity for displaying righteous indignation about how some contractor has been treated!

 

[MP3Mike]

When is the last day to vote?

No emails yet …

You have until June 12th to vote. (So more than a month.)

Or if you attend the shareholder meeting you can vote in person on June 13th.

 

[Thekiwi]

If you look at the trend, Tesla is growing AI spending faster than the Big 4 AI. If they spend $10B in 2024 on AI as projected, that will be more than a doubling over 2 years. None of the Big 4 AI players can beat that.
View attachment 1043688

“None of the Big 4 AI players can beat that.”

This is an absurd statement on par with saying Tesla cant beat smaller EV manufacturers because one may have doubled sales year on year from 10k to 20k.

The “big 4” are spending somewhere between $7 Billion to $10 Billion per quarter each on AI infrastructure, while Tesla spent ~$1 Billion in Q1.

 

[Thekiwi]

This may have something to do with the rise.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/02/apple-aapl-earnings-report-q2-2024.html

Bad use of a once 100-billion dollar stockpile.

FYI: Apple generates $100 Billion+ in cashflow annually.

They still have $160 Billion cash on hand currently, and will still likely have $150 Billion cash on hand in 12 months time.

Apple has returned $867 Billion in cash to shareholders since it started its capital return program in 2012.

 

[Baumisch]

“None of the Big 4 AI players can beat that.”

This is an absurd statement on par with saying Tesla cant beat smaller EV manufacturers because one may have doubled sales year on year from 10k to 20k.

The “big 4” are spending somewhere between $7 Billion to $10 Billion per quarter each on AI infrastructure, while Tesla spent ~$1 Billion in Q1.

But how much of the hyperscalers AI spent can they use for themselves? They have customer workloads after all that need the compute right?

 

[Mengy]

Schwab just notified me that I could vote my shares.

Done.

edit: JP Morgan followed... also done

Yep, I got this from Schwab as well. Haven't gotten it from Vanguard nor Fidelity yet though.

Time to do my part in getting Elon the compensation he earned and deserves.

 

[Linkmeup]

Got it from Vanguard. Voted with all board recs.

 

[Usain]

Yeah that was pretty weird given uptime is already 99.95%

I wonder how they came up with that figure. The Supercharger location in Kissimmee, FL has two chargers that have been broken for about a year.

I've used many charging networks and Tesla is by far the very, very best. But I have my doubts about 99.95% uptime. Kissimmee's 8 chargers have been at 75% for many months.

 

[sunwarriors]

“None of the Big 4 AI players can beat that.”

This is an absurd statement on par with saying Tesla cant beat smaller EV manufacturers because one may have doubled sales year on year from 10k to 20k.

The “big 4” are spending somewhere between $7 Billion to $10 Billion per quarter each on AI infrastructure, while Tesla spent ~$1 Billion in Q1.

Here's the numbers posted on spend in an article...what they are spending according to this article can be $40 billion a year as you state. Operating margins are 49%.

MSN

"The world’s largest social network isn’t going to have any problems footing the bills. Advertising revenue jumped nearly 27% year over year to $35.6 billion for the quarter, while operating margins for the core advertising segment known as Family of Apps hit 49% in the first quarter—nearly 10 points better than the same period a year ago. The business of showing ads to a global audience of 3.24 billion users who check in daily is a lucrative one. Even with sharply elevated capital spending, Meta’s free cash flow hit $12.5 billion in the latest quarter—up 81% year over year."

 

[Darkfox021]

Yep, I got this from Schwab as well. Haven't gotten it from Vanguard nor Fidelity yet though.

Time to do my part in getting Elon the compensation he earned and deserves.

For Fidelity, try fidelity.com/proxymaterials

 

[2daMoon]

No I did not speculate. You ASSUMED I speculated because I gave you alternative possibilities. Factually, he knows more than anyone, therefore I don’t care what anyone with less information thinks.

No amount of word play, salad, or diarrhea is going to get me to answer your question in a way different than I already have.

Hi Pot, Kettle here.

Then stop asking questions and replying to me. Simply move along.


Like your conclusion this must be a correct decision because Elon made it?

Nope. Never said that. Another assumption you made. I’ve ‘accepted’ his decision. That’s entirely different. You’re the one who requires yourself and others to label decisions right or wrong.

But...you didn't.

At all.

You said new revenue, better, revenue streams coming.

For the second time, I gave you a list of three possibilities to fill in holes in your theories.

I replied discussing RT and FSD as those streams.

And I didn’t say that’s what I was referring to or not. You assumed.

You then suggested I was wrong because you hadn't specified WHAT new revenue streams.

Yes, I suggested you might be wrong.

So I asked what you did mean.

And I didn’t answer.

Give your continued non-answer one can only conclude either:

I was right in the first place- you DID mean RT/FSD-- but you didn't like the rebuttal of that point so pretended you meant something else
or
You didn't mean anything at all and won't admit it.

Those are two possibilities. There are others. Not my fault you can’t think of them and I’m not interested in discussing them with you.

On the contrary you seem to have a VERY CLEAR opinion that it isn't one-- but when asked why you're unable to offer anything besides "I trust Elon"

Nope. I am opinion free on the topic. Just because you are incapable of being opinion or assumption free doesn’t mean I’m not.

I’ve offered plenty. It just doesn’t happen to be what you want.

Again that's a perfectly valid answer- but at least own it.

I’ve literally owned my position on the topic. Don’t be disingenuous because you don’t understand.

Because I understand that all humans make mistakes. So when a human makes a puzzling decision it's possible that decision is a mistake.

You on the other hand seem incapable of even considering Elon is making a mistake.

I’ve clearly stated on several occasions he’s made mistakes and you know that. But nice try.

If Tesla hired a 500 person team, and all of them had so little value and institutional knowledge, even after many had been there years and years, that there was no value in retaining ANY of them-- not even to train a replacement-- then yes I'm pretty incredulous that happened.

Okay. I’m not. We’ll both live. I’ll just do it less emotionally.

Do you think Tesla has been so badly mismanged at the highest levels that entire teams of hundreds of people are 100% filled with 0 value employees?

No idea. I’m not there. I don’t have that information, therefore no opinion.

Far MORE likely to explain this- as others have suggested-- and as supported from what we know about Elon from Issacsons book- the manager was dragging their feet about making the 10% staff reductions, so Elon decided to teach that manager a lesson by firing all 500 people in the group without regard to who they were, what they did, or how much Tesla might miss anything they were doing-- that's a tomorrow problem. Teaching the manager a lesson-- and scaring all the other managers into line- is todays problem.

Okay. Whatever. It’s not important to me what others are speculating or guessing about it one way or another. I do know what Elon said, so I’ll just go with that for now, k?

I think you used more lines than the troll.
But, I don't know for sure, if you know what I mean and I think that you do

 

[Knightshade]

I wonder how they came up with that figure. The Supercharger location in Kissimmee, FL has two chargers that have been broken for about a year.

I've used many charging networks and Tesla is by far the very, very best. But I have my doubts about 99.95% uptime. Kissimmee's 8 chargers have been at 75% for many months.

Tesla has explained the methodology elsewhere, here's a report about it and including the uptime stats annually from 2018-2022:

https://insideevs.com/news/664737/tesla-superchargers-average-uptime-2022/

Uptime of Supercharger sites reflects the average percentage of sites globally that had at least 50% of their daily capacity functional for the year.

So less than 50% of a site being down, no matter how long, would still qualify as the site being up.

Yep, I got this from Schwab as well. Haven't gotten it from Vanguard nor Fidelity yet though.

Time to do my part in getting Elon the compensation he earned and deserves.

FWIW I got mine from both Fidelity and ML this evening (3 days after Robinhood )

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Tesla has explained the methodology elsewhere, here's a report about it and including the uptime stats annually from 2018-2022:

https://insideevs.com/news/664737/tesla-superchargers-average-uptime-2022/

So less than 50% of a site being down, no matter how long, would still qualify as the site being up.

In balance, Tesla's design approach means that if the site is over half full consistently, they really need to expand because there's not enough power. So they'd get their Supercharger ... oh ... never mind.

 

[FreqFlyer]

FYI: Apple generates $100 Billion+ in cashflow annually.

They still have $160 Billion cash on hand currently, and will still likely have $150 Billion cash on hand in 12 months time.

Apple has returned $867 Billion in cash to shareholders since it started its capital return program in 2012.

And at one point more than that. Thank you for the information, I thought the cash stockpile had been whittled down by past stock buybacks and special dividends.

 

[geometro]

Fidelity email just came across.

 

[phantasms]

Can Tesla see how we personally vote on our shares?

…asking for a friend.